Lost Coastlines
by dustylibrarian
Summary: REVISED-Enara Halluck is something of a troublemaker. She keeps running circles around Sherlock Holmes, until one fateful day, they finally meet. Lets just say she keeps Sherlock busy.
1. Chapter 1

Rain, rain, rain, fucking rain, pouring like God's piss onto the London streets. Its not even bloody cold, it's muggy here all the time, like the pollution mixed in with all the moisture and just seeps into everything. At least in Canada it was cold and crisp when it rained. I tell you, this city is a downright pisspot. But nonetheless, it's been my home for ten years now. I visit my mum in British Columbia once a year at least, and I stayed with her for two years when I was thirteen, a burgeoning teen, and apparently too much of a handful for my poor pop. Hes simple man, really, and adolescent girls aren't really his gig. He kept trying to take me out to shoot when I was mopey and brooding, and when I relayed to my mum that he was convinced killing something would make me feel better, she snatched me right back for a while. Even so, he's always been decent.

But my mum, now she's a saint. That woman knew how to live. And cook. She was native Canadian, and she passed down all her recipes to her, roasted salmon and pine nut butter with rosemary flatbread, the smells that make me irrevocably homesick. When she was twelve, she shot her pig of a father and fled, but I don't think anyone even reported it to the police. From what I had gleaned, her pa was a downright demon, raping her and her sisters, beating my grandmother and leaving them all to starve while he gambled away every cent of the combined paychecks.

But that's just what Ive overheard, my mum always kept real quiet about it. After she left Canada for while, she traveled around and always had her nose in some sort of trouble. Getting in the middle of a revolution in Iran, making thousands in Vegas only to lose it all on an underground 'business' venture in Chile, and then she made her way all the way over to Russia, where she met my pa. she was right in the middle of burning down the house of some bastards that tried to play grabass one too many times and was about to get shot, when he stumbled out of an alleyway, blind drunk, and fell in love as soon as he saw her. He says he knew it as soon as he gazed with bloodshot eyes at the wild woman before him, that he would love her for the rest of his life. He says he knew she would stop loving him down the road too, but that just made him love her more. I like to think someday Ill fall in love like that, that Ill know it as soon as I see him. Or her, I try to keep an open mind about these sorts of things.

I guess I inherited a wild streak from my mum, but Ive got my dads drinking and bad habits. He's dying of cancer of I speak, but hell be puffing on a cigarette when his dying breath leaves his blackened lungs. I've got more of a tendency for the lighter stuff. By lighter, Im implying powder. I mean cocaine does the trick now and again, but speed is my weakness. Egawds, just thinking it makes my mouth water for the sugary drip of orange pills in the back of my throat.

But that violence, I blame my mum for that. Its bad luck too, everyone in my familys got the damn poorest luck of anyone I've ever had the misfortune to cross. From one auntie or uncle to the next, theyre all drunk and dirt poor, drunk and sinking into dementia, blathering on about all the bastards that screwed them over.

But Im different. I got screwed over, big time. When I was eighteen, someone I was real close to, someone who I was good friends with screwed me over. Twelve times, to be exact. Ill speak plainly. The bastard tied me up in his closet, then beat and raped me for two days straight. Afterwards, he took off for America to live with his mum and never see anyone again. I kissed my fantasies of losing my virginity to a Grecian hunk goodbye, picked myself up and stumbled home. Three months later, my mum died in a car accident. My dad hasn't been quite the same since. I tried to comfort him, telling him he hadn't even seen her in years, they never spoke. But he just shrugged and took a sip of vodka, and said, "it don't matter. Enara, people like your mother don't just grace the earth every day. The whole world misses a beat when she is taken from it, whether they talk to her or not." His Russian accent is so thick when he drinks it's impenetrable to understand, but to me it sounds like home.

And he was right. Some people are different, and I'm one of those people. At some point around that time, I decided I wasn't going to lie down and take it. Maybe I was in a shitty position, and me and all my family were terribly misfortunate, but I was going to change that. I knew I wasn't going to start over and mess up generations of violent people by going to church and performing acts of charity, so I figured I'd start with what I knew best. I worked a whole summer and trained in running, martial arts and boxing while all my friends applied to colleges. At the end of the summer I bought a plane ticket to San Francisco and staked out, waiting for him. When he was alone in the house, I taught him a lesson he probably still gets nightmares about. I expected to feel remorse, or regret, as if it hadn't solved any problems, but at some point I came to the realization that he was never going to rape again. There was something there.

So I settled back into England, moving from my fathers house in the countryside to London, working and going to school for a while, but it didn't scratch the itch. I felt restless all the time. I ran ten miles every night, but I was still uncomfortable somehow, fidgety. One night, I went to a party with a few friends, cracked open a bottle and everyone got as rowdy as would be expected. Later, I heard screaming, muffled from the upstairs bedroom while taking a piss and I dared to investigate. Upon pressing my ear to the door, I heard the unmistakable sounds of some poor soul being taken advantage of. I kicked the door down, dragged the boy around by his hair and threw him down the stairs. That night, I realized my calling. At last, the craving was sated and I returned home and slept more soundly than I had in a year.

I like to think I'm avenging my mother too, and a few of my aunties. The streak of misfortune that runs in my veins isn't going to evaporate, Ill always wake up sweating, thinking Im still locked in a closet with my own panties stuffed in my mouth. But at the very least, I can prevent it from happening to others.

This is not for the faint or weak hearted, mind you. This _is_ the story of how I saved London, met my best friends and fell in love. But this is not the story with a happy ending. Well, not for me at least.

But hey, chin up and all.


	2. Chapter 2

It was nine in the evening by the time I got back from my usual workout, and the last vestige of dusk was fading quickly behind the horizon of Londons skyline. I tramped all the way up four flights of stairs, and I could hear music from the inside of my flat before I opened the door. It was a small thing with a wall separating the kitchen, a nook for an entrance room and a decently sixed living area that face the south. Two enormous windows overlooked the street below, and it was the tallest building for a block or two and that was part of what I liked about it. That and the unmonitored roof access. Speaking of which, my personal technician was currently schmoozing it up with the last drops of my liquor supply from the sounds of the choice in music. For some reason unbeknownst to me, ryan always went for salsa music when he was nursing a tipsy attitude. The sounds of music and mayhem echoed out the open windows. I found him sprawled in my living room, surrounded by a heap of wire and circuitry, a dangerously low bottle of wine at his side.

"Hey!" he shouted, slightly muffled by a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, "What the hell did you do to the loop I had going?" I grabbed my water bottle and chugged for a moment before responding.

"heck, I dunno, I'm not the geek here, I beat people up and watch them run in legal circles afterwards. I'm upholding my end of the deal here, eh?"

"Your deal? Oh god, are you bringing the devil into this again-"

I gestured wildly, taking on a tone I hoped was ominous, but probably ended up being more droning.

"the devil is in all matters, ryan. We're all dying-"

"don't start this nonsense up again. Poetry doesn't take kindly to you, remember?"

I grumbled, recalling the one poetry class I had been foolish enough to take. It wasn't so much that the poetry aspect wasn't up my alley, it was my classmates that all had giant sticks up their-

"back to the matter at hand, Enara, what did you do to this since last week?"

"I was pointing out in a subtle and kind tone that I don't touch that junk."

"this junk is my greatest craft, it is the very epitome of a perfect alibi-"

I groaned, seeing as he was about to carry on into all lengths of the night.

"Ryan, is there anything I can do? Because it kind of seems like youre just moaning at me."

"Im not moaning im just saying-"

I sighed and tuned him out and wandered into the kitchen instead, starting to pull out the medley I would throw into dinner. I glanced at the time. Ten past nine, what the hell. I pulled out the wine and poured myself a glass and turned up the salsa music.

"Call Melly!" I yelled at Ryan, who was stacking the wires once again with his soldering iron. He nodded and flipped open his phone, ignoring my request and texting her instead. I scooted back into the kitchen and went to work, slicing vegetables and throwing spices into a pan, starting to sautee mushrooms and onions. I pulled the tuna out and slathered it in lemon and thyme before it got tossed in the oven. Hardly fifteen minutes into my cooking spree, as the kitchen clouded with succulent aromas, I heard Melly and Nick burst in the door.

"nara! By god, where are you, all I see is broccoli." She was right, I had been slicing a little enthusiastically in my tipsiness and there were broccoli bits in my hair. I brushed them away quickly, still stirring the various simmering pots and pans on the stove. "Hi Mel. Ey, I got a little overexcited." She pulled large chunk out of my sports bra. "yes, I see that. Theres a thing tonight, we should go. Its this band, and they know Nick, but theyre all jumped up and young, apparently he wants to stiff them or something, bah. All gossip aside, I think Robin and Tim were planning on going." I waggled my eyebrows mischievously.

"eh, you know only bad things happen when we all get together." She laughed and dipped a finger into the sauce I was gently stirring.

"mmm! Darn that's good. Well, bad things wouldn't happen if you and Robin didn't get blackout drunk every time."

I stuck my nose in the air in a false claim to innocence.

"There is little I can do when people buy me shots. T'would be rude to refuse."

She chatted at me, and the evening passed quickly as we set up a table on the small veranda and drinks flowed freely, laughter bounding off cement walls as Christmas lights and candles were lit in the burgeoning night. As Nick and Ryan began finished debating their favorite tv series and Melly and I finshed gossiping, the last of the food was piled onto Ryans plate and a bloated peacefulness swam in the eyes of my friends.

"hey, enara, have you heard of that detective fellow?"

I swilled my wine and cocked my head, the concept ringing a bell. Some bloody psychopath that solved crimes for fun, as I recalled, always at the side of the police and on the front of tabloids in some wonky hat.

"yeah, I thought he died, right?"

"no, he's back! Faked the whole thing apparently."

"erungh." Melly voiced the feeling I had at this revelation.

"yeah," I said, my nose a little crinkled. "who fakes their own death? It all seems bloody weird to me, he's got something wrong with him. But whatever, I guess so long as he keeps locking up the bad guys I'm at no means for complaint." They agreed and the subject somehow turned once again into the tv show. I leaned back and lit up a cigarette, watching the stars glimmer behind a haze of light pollution.

After telling melly I would come make my way to the bar a bit later, everyone left and by eleven I was alone.

I pranced up to the rooftop, enjoying the slight tingle of fear that crossed my mind as I swung myself upwards onto the roof, feeling the heavy toll gravity inflicted upon my slight frame. I was small, so I had to make up for my short stature and slender body with speed and agility. I raced across the rooftop and made the usual jump across the narrow alleyway, my legs delighting in the stretch and flexing warmly as I landed. I made my way across the rooftops towards the university, where the roof lifted elegantly above its neighbors to grant me a better survey of the world below me. I clambered onto the roof with ease, scaling the windows and swinging off Victorian style accents. It was here that I found the small phone, plugged into an outdoor outlet and covered with a tshirt.

"Right then." I pulled the black mask onto my face and turned the phone on.


End file.
